Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) Business Forum 2022
Our Group Executive Director attended the Polish Investment and Trade Agency’s Business Forum 2022 held at the PGE Narodowy, Warsaw, Poland on October 5, 2022. The Polish Investment and Trade Agency (PAIH) is an advisory institution belonging to the Polish Development Fund (PFR) Group. PAIH supports both the foreign expansion of Polish business and the inflow of foreign direct investments into Poland. It operates in Poland and through its network of PAIH Foreign Trade Offices around the world as the first point of contact for exporters and investors. Here is a short article on his experience at Business Forum 2022.
At PAIH’s Business Forum 2022, over 4,000 participants gathered to listen to talks, attend industry workshops, hold meetings with employees of PAIH’s Foreign Trade Offices, and of course, do some networking. The venue was the PGE Narodowy Stadium, the largest stadium in Poland which was built for the European Football Championship in 2021.
At this Forum you can see industries and people from all sectors. The Business Forum had one session on MedTech.
Although I could not understand Polish – there were enough English terms, so a very limited number of Polish terms, along with body language, got me through.
Same challenges, different country.
Various regulatory changes, distributors being challenging to find, management, reimbursement, product-market fit, licensing know-how from research.
We had many discussions with the PAIH country representatives. Interestingly, because they were all still busy up to the very last, most of the connections were made while waiting for the taxi outside the stadium! New connections bring warmth in a cold evening.
The PAIH country representatives were really pragmatic – if the product-market fit is not there, they just let the companies know right away. This also applied to when they will utilize consulting, and when not (Most of the time! Except for some very specific cases.)
The last picture taken with all the PAIH representatives was really impressive – to gather as many representatives as possible in one location is really challenging. Some colleagues had not met in years, some colleagues had never met before! The engagement was amazing and the new connections will be invaluable.
